Mets of the Past and Present Forever Connected to the Aftermath of 9/11

NEW YORK — The two New York baseball clubs hugged and shook hands prior to their Subway Series game Saturday night in front of 41,922 fans at Citi Field. They formed two lines down the first and third base sides of the diamonds, with Mets and Yankees intermingling instead of standing separately with their respective teams during the national anthem to signify a unified New York.

The air felt thick with emotion: There was pride, strength and sadness in the stands, while the mood on the field was much more contemplative.

Twenty years later, the world is still trying to make sense of the Sept. 11 attacks and the role baseball, and more specifically the Mets and Yankees, played in the days that followed. The Yankees returned to action Sept. 18 in Chicago. Former President George W. Bush threw out the first pitch of Game 3 of the World Series. New York baseball played a pivotal role in trying to help the nation overcome grief, and it still is today.

We're more divided than ever, yet it's the Mets—yes, the Mets—showing that unity is possible through sports.

The hugging and handshaking were reminiscent of a scene from almost 20 years ago when the Mets and the Atlanta Braves, their hated NL East rivals, acknowledged one another during a somber pregame moment when the Shea faithful were so full of anguish.

At the time, the attacks were so fresh the team could see the smoldering fires from downtown Manhattan when they crossed over the George Washington Bridge coming home from their road trip in Pittsburgh. Other than the police escort, the team was alone on that bridge, creating a surreal scene. The Mets, as well as many other professional sports teams, questioned whether they would play again in 2001, but 10 days later they were hosting the Braves at Shea Stadium, the first sports event in the city since the attacks. 

When Mike Piazza hit that iconic home run, the doubt disappeared.

"It was when Mike hit the home run," former Mets and Yankees pitcher Al Leiter said this weekend at Citi Field, as the Mets and Yankees commemorated the attacks 20 years later. "You see people watching at Shea Stadium who were kind of flat with respect to what was going on that night and what has transpired in the country. Then they erupted. They went crazy. And I knew, we knew, people knew that it was the right thing."

Two decades later, the members of the 2001 Mets look back on that game with a mix of nostalgia, disbelief and heavy emotion. Piazza was a hero, but he still struggles to understand his role in history. That home run meant so much to so many, but to him? The Hall of Fame catcher still isn't quite sure.

"I don't think it really gets any easier as the years go on," he said in a Zoom press conference Saturday afternoon. "I think time sort of has a healing effect. For me, especially when this day comes by every year, it is difficult to kind of look back. The images for me and for I'm sure a lot of people are very vivid in their mind."

The image is still vivid in the minds of many. Down 2-1 in the bottom of the eighth, Piazza faced closer Steve Karsay, a Queens native who grew up watching the Mets.

Everyone still remembers the pitch—a fastball—and where it went—over the left-center wall. And they remember the complicated emotions they felt next.

"Weirdly, we've talked about the fact that the day was sort of like a fog in a way," former Mets catcher Todd Zeile said. "I remember the pregame ceremony, I remember hugging and shaking hands with our enemies on the field before the game, I remember Liza Minnelli singing, and I remember Mike's home run. I barely remember any other parts of the game. I've had to watch it again to kind of relive it.

"To me, Mike's home run felt like a celebration, but it almost felt like this was what was supposed to happen."

It was as if it were scripted. Too on-the-nose even for Hollywood.

JEFF ZELEVANSKY/Associated Press

"I think even if you read this in a movie script, you say, 'Nah, you gotta jumble it up a little bit,'" Leiter said. "So, the crescendo and the combination of all of that, it almost felt unreal how it played out. Mike hits the home run. Then we win."

The performances by Diana Ross, Liza Minnelli and Piazza gave the game a World Series-like feel. But against a backdrop of such unbelievable devastation, it wasn't exactly one to celebrate.

"We remember it. We remember that moment as if it was yesterday," former shortstop Rey Ordonez said through a translator. "But there is still a little bit of sadness when we watch that."

John Franco, a Brooklyn native, said Piazza and the Mets put a small Band-Aid on a much larger wound. New York City, his home, was wounded, and the nation was as well. A way of life was perceived to be under attack. This country wasn't going to back down.

Two decades later, members of the 2001 Mets still believe Franco's sentiment to be true. They see that in times of crisis the nation looks to things like its pastime for help in healing. The Mets don't feel as though they were heroes on Sept. 21, 2001, but they did see the profound effect they had by playing that game against the Braves.

"Seeing everything leading up to it and then that moment in that game transpire, I think we recognized that was, for a split second, a release maybe," Zeile said. "It was an escape for some of the people to think of something else, to be in a better place for just a moment."

Watching baseball felt like normalcy at a time when nothing was normal. When the club turned Shea into a donation hub and Bobby Valentine spurred the efforts to organize and disseminate items to victims, the players felt they could make a difference.

When they visited firehouses and police stations, they saw they were making a difference.

"I was fortunate enough to be invited down to Ground Zero early on and I met with a group. It felt like, 'Man, this is really, really invasive. I don't know if I belong here. These guys must be going through so much,'" Zeile said. "But their reactions. ... The looks on their face seeing us, guys who love baseball and the Mets, and guys seeing Mike just gave us the feeling that maybe this is that little break to get away from it.

"That gave me a sense that this is what I should be doing until we go back to work. So I went to the Javits Center and helped out. I visited families. I spent time with people and got to know them. I got to feel like I knew their stories..."

Zeile trailed off, tears in his eyes.

"Gosh, this is hard," he said.

I nearly cried too. I wasn't alone.

The capacity crowd at Citi Field on Saturday linked arms and observed a moment of silence. Some carried American flags and some openly wept while holding signs for the loved ones they lost in the attacks. They watched players from their favorite teams take the field in hats emblazoned with either NYPD, NYFD or EMS in the same white uniforms the Mets donned 20 years ago.

It was Pete Alonso who pushed for these hats and pushed to allow players to wear custom cleats to honor 9/11. He purchased custom cleats for his team to wear during the 2019 game. Alonso knew the league would not approve, since it hadn't allowed the team to wear those hats since 2001. He didn't care, and he later donated those cleats to the 9/11 Museum.

Homers for Heroes, the charitable foundation he runs with his fiancee, Haley Walsh, raises and donates funds to first responders and other charitable organizations like Wounded Warriors.

Alonso was only six when the attacks occurred, but he's now carrying the torch to make sure a new generation knows about Piazza's home run and the contributions of the 2001 team.

"It shows the character of these guys. It shows the way he was raised," Piazza said. "The values you have as a human being and as a man. We have a unique community here in New York, and I think that is something that has been emblematic of the players that have played in New York City down through the generations."

The Mets may not fully understand their place in history, but they did create a legacy in the aftermath of 9/11. In trying times, people look to sports for comfort. They look to their favorite athletes to do superhuman things, and they look to sports to unite us. Few would expect the Mets, a team more known for public relations faux pas than anything else, to change it for the better, but they did exactly that by telling a reeling nation to believe in something bigger than themselves.

Saturday at Citi Field, we were reminded of that lesson once again.

"The positive effect is that you see a lot about the outpouring of love and affection, and the same sentiments that I think we had after the attacks in the city," Piazza said. "Unfortunately, you do have to experience tragedy to see triumph and see courage and bravery. As much as I'm sad to see and remember the sad events, it's still uplifting to see the positive stories that came out of that week."